Going Alone to School: a Proposal for Autonomy

"As one of the objectives of the Children´s city programme in Italy is the enhancement of children´s autonomus mobility, the research group of the CNR has begun to experiment with new methods that might allow to overcome some of the barriers in children´s patterns of free movement. The aim of the presentation is to discuss the method developed as part of a proposal called "Going alone to school". The method comprises a collaboration with several local actors, children included, who are willing to analyse the environmental and social context in which children journey from home to school, to plan for its improvements, and to change the conditions so that children can go alone to school when they are 7 years old. Recent examples from two Italian towns indicate that it is possible to brake the resistance coming from families and to let children journey alone to school."